Friday, 30 August 2013

The UK solar market’s annual demand has hit the GW-level for the first time, according to research data published by NPD Solarbuzz.

The news confirms the UK’s position as one of the up and coming markets in the global solar industry, marking out the UK solar sector as a GW-status end-market territory.

NPD Solarbuzz vice president Finlay Colville told PV Tech it was important to note that despite recent negative publicity around solar and other forms of renewable energy as a result of mainstream newspapers’ coverage of ‘not-in-my-back-yard’ (nimby) pressure groups, the findings demonstrate that end-market growth remains strong.

Figures published by NPD Solarbuzz show that demand for solar PV during the first quarter of 2013 stood at 520MW, dropping to 282MW for the second quarter. When added to figures of installed capacity in July and August, the total exceeds the 1GW mark.

The cumulative total of solar PV installed in the UK to date stands at over 2.7GW, with 50% residential, 22% commercial rooftops and the remaining 28% from ground-mounted PV.

The research also reveals that the ground-mount segment declined by more than a factor of two during Q2’13 compared to the previous quarter. The slowdown has been attributed to the cut to the available Renewable Obligation Certificate (ROC) rate for large-scale solar developers, which fell from 2ROCs to 1.6ROCs in April 2013. This aspect of the slowdown was widely anticipated. Colville added: “The slowdown in the ground-mount segment in Q2 was also impacted by the availability of Chinese modules coming into Europe, prior to the European Commission ruling at the start of August.”